Session #3 – Curated by… Transformations

How can visual communication transform?
This session, facilitated by Matt Edgar and Pam Bowman from the Sheffield Institute of Arts, focuses on the transformative nature of graphic design and illustration. Selected practitioners present and discuss recent projects that have had a transformative impact.

Edgar and Bowman head up the Graphic Design course at Sheffield Hallam University. They established the ‘curated by…’ lecture programme as a key part of the visual communication courses within the Sheffield Institute of Arts. The initiative provides a platform for sharing influences and discourse around the discipline for both students and the wider design community across the region.

On leaving the Royal College of Art in 1987 Andy formed the multi disciplinary design group Why Not Associates with fellow graduates Howard Greenhalgh and David Ellis. In over 25 years of experience Andy has worked on projects ranging from exhibition design to postage stamps via advertising, publishing, television titles, commercials, corporate identity and public art. Why Not Associates clients include the Royal Academy of Arts, Malcolm Mcclaren, Pompidou Centre, Royal Mail, Nike, Paul Smith, Virgin Records, Antony Gormley, BBC, Channel 4 and the Tate Modern.

In 1991 Why Not Associates collaborated with Edward Booth-Clibborn and Rick Poyner to edit and design Typography Now: The Next wave – which became the most significant, most referenced, best selling survey of typographic trends and thinking of its time.

A monograph was published in 1998 by Booth-Clibborn editions documenting the first ten years of their work. A second was published in 2004 by Thames and Hudson which documented another five years. They still strive to push the boundaries of graphic design and more recent projects collaborating with artist Gordon Young have moved them into the world of public art. In June 2013 a retrospective exhibition was held of their work at the GGG gallery in Tokyo.

Danny Antrobus is the co-founder of The Better with Data Society, founded in January 2014 as a social enterprise to build on the long-standing work of the open data community in Sheffield through the Open Data Sheffield group. Their aim is to increase civic engagement with data, through work with data publishers to increase the amount of open data available across Sheffield city region, and to work with the people and organisations who can make good use of data to improve social, economic and cultural life in the region. The Better With Data Society is the host organisation for ODI Sheffield, the Sheffield city node for the Open Data Institute. 2015 has seen them collaborate with Sheffield City Council to make the air in Sheffield better with open data through their ‘Air Quality+’ open data initiatives.